


Le Bel Animal du Roi

by Eglantine



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Giraffes, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 15:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7110553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eglantine/pseuds/Eglantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combeferre and Joly travel to Chartres to collect information from a fellow revolutionary. And also to see a giraffe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Le Bel Animal du Roi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PilferingApples](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilferingApples/gifts).



> [The giraffe is (apparently) real.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarafa_\(giraffe\))

_My dear Lémery,_

_How glad I am to hear from you, and how sorry that I have been so neglectful a correspondent. I hope you find your new situation agreeable. Life in Paris continues much as it always has-- with, of course, the notable exception of your friends’ increased sorrow at your absence._

_Nothing in the world would please me better than to visit you in Chartres and take in the wonder of the king’s giraffe. You may expect me, as you suggested, in two weeks’ time._

_I am ever your affectionate friend,  
Jean-Luc Combeferre _

 

“Yes, that’s very good,” Enjolras said, raising his head from the letter. “But you don’t think it’s a bit too conspicuous, as far as codes go? The giraffe, I mean?”

“Oh,” Combeferre said. “No. There… there really is a giraffe.” 

\--

The facts were as follows: 

Nicolas Lémery had been a Polytechnician, though perhaps not the sort of unfailingly loyal officer that a king like Charles X might dream of. But he had graduated with no official stain on his record, and upon graduation was stationed in Chartres.

But as is so often the case, he was no sooner gone from Paris than he was sorely missed. He was found to be sole keeper of certain pieces of information— certain names, the location of certain friends— that had all at once become vital indeed, particularly to Enjolras. 

During his single year at the Polytechnic, Combeferre and Lémery had been classmates, and after Combeferre dropped out to pursue medicine, had remained friends, though they had taken some care never to openly brush shoulders in any circumstance that could be called at all political. All conversations of that nature had passed between Lémery and Enjolras, and there was some fear that their connection in that respect was suspected. 

Combeferre was thus decreed the safest choice to visit Lémery and retrieve his information, as one who could visit him without arousing any suspicion at all. Joly, an entirely neutral party, having never met Lémery, volunteered to go along.

Besides, both Joly and Combeferre very much wanted to see the giraffe.

\--

Chartres was a day’s journey away by diligence, and Joly had brought along a sizeable valise. 

“I do always fall ill when I travel,” he said, fussing with the latch as they waited for the coupé to depart. “But it can’t be helped, of course we must go.”

“Why do you suppose that is?” Combeferre asked. “That you fall ill, I mean.” 

“If you’re only asking so you may have the pleasure of debunking my theory…”

“No, no,” Combeferre said quickly. “I am very curious, genuinely. To what do you ascribe this pattern?”

Joly was instantly cheered. “Well, naturally, change of air was my first thought. But to fall ill traveling from the bad air of Paris to the clean air of the country? Well, that makes no sense.” 

“No,” Combeferre agreed thoughtfully. 

“Then, I thought that the jostling of the carriage—” At just that moment, said jostling began as the coupé lurched forward, and both laughed. “—I thought perhaps the agitation of the bodily fluids set my humors out of balance— as they are already prone to be, in my case. So that that, combined with the wearying nature of travel…” Joly spread his hands: _draw your own conclusions._

“A fine theory,” Combeferre said. “I prescribe a large glass of wine when we arrive.” 

“Well,” Joly said contentedly. “Who am I to contradict a doctor’s advice?”

\--

When they arrived that evening, they took a room on the outskirts of town, well away from the finery (and expense) of the famed cathedral. And they did indeed have a large glass of wine each, and perhaps more than one. It was this indulgence that found Combeferre sitting backwards on one of the chairs, explaining, “What I would love above all things is to speak to Saint-Hilaire. But I expect he’ll be quite occupied. With the giraffe and all.” 

“I read,” Joly said— somewhat indistinctly, it must be noted, for he was simultaneously examining his tongue in the slightly dirty mirror that hung above the dresser. “I read that he had a coat made for it— as the climate of France is so much colder than that of Africa. Even in the summer.” 

Combeferre grinned. “A giraffe in a coat! –and what does your tongue tell you?”

“I don’t know,” Joly said fretfully. “But my throat has been a touch sore since we got off…”

“That’s just dust from the road,” Combeferre said. 

Joly’s protest was cut off by a knock on the door. Joly turned away from the mirror and Combeferre rose to answer. One of the innkeeper’s sons was on the other side, and he thrust a piece of paper into Combeferre’s hand. 

“Message came for you, monsieur,” he said, and Combeferre sent him off with thanks and a franc. 

“Lémery?” Joly asked when Combeferre had shut the door and had a moment to peruse the letter.

“Yes,” Combeferre said, giving it a final glance before handing it off to Joly. “We’ll meet tomorrow at a café he suggests. I am confident that it must be safe, if he trusts it.”

Joly said, “If he is a friend to you and Enjolras, I do not doubt him in the least.”

\--

“I believe you look a bit smug,” Combeferre said in the morning. 

“I do not,” Joly protested. “I look ill.” He blew his nose. “—and perhaps like a man taking some small measure of consolation in being proven right. But as a friend, and out of pity for my illness, I am sure you won’t begrudge me.” 

“I suppose not,” Combeferre said. “But if you aren’t feeling up to the meeting…” 

Joly flapped his handkerchief dismissively. “Not at all, I am perfectly able to go. Besides, it will deflect suspicion. No one looks revolutionary with a red nose.” 

\-- 

Lémery, already blessed by nature with statuesque height and striking looks, was a truly eye-catching figure when a uniform was added on. He stood and waved when he spied Combeferre and Joly approaching down the street, but he hardly needed to draw the additional attention. Such traits might worry a man who was engaged, as he was, in secret schemes against the government he served, but he had found that in fact, his superiors were eager to read nothing but goodness and loyalty into such a handsome face as his. 

“Ah!” he cried, embracing Combeferre at once. “How good to see you! And your friend!” 

“This is Stéphane Joly,” Combeferre said. “Joly, may I present Nicolas Lémery?” 

“A pleasure indeed,” Joly said. He cleared his throat. “Pardon how I sound.” 

“Not at all, not at all,” Lémery said briskly. “I am very happy to meet you. Come, sit, sit! I want to hear all about Paris.” 

They fell easily into cheerful conversation about mutual friends, mutual haunts. Before long, they were debating the name of a certain café not far from the Ecole Polytechnique. Combeferre insisted that no, that was not the name, perhaps Lémery was thinking of a different establishment? At which Lémery drew a piece of paper out of his pocket.

“Here, now,” he said. “I shall draw you a map and show you where I mean.”

But though he continued to describe the location, he drew nothing, just slid the paper across the table. Combeferre quietly took it and slipped it into his own pocket.

“Oh!” Joly said suddenly as Combeferre did this. “I wanted to ask you something! What have you heard about the giraffe? It’s due today, isn’t it?”

“Ah!” Lémery cried. “The king’s beautiful creature. Well, she’s been delayed, unfortunately. Word is now that they won’t reach Chartres until tomorrow. Do you two intend to linger?”

“We hadn’t, no,” Combeferre said. “We’d planned to start back to Paris this evening.” 

Lémery said, “Well, that’s a shame. Quite selfishly, I wish you were staying longer. I miss my old friends. I want news of Paris.”

“I’ll do what I can to supply the lack while we’re here,” Combeferre said with a smile. Joly sneezed and nodded agreement. And so they passed a very pleasant early afternoon, until Joly, head swimming with a combination of congestion and wine, begged leave to excuse himself.

“I’m afraid I really ought to lie down,” he said, bobbing an apologetic bow. “It was such a pleasure to meet you.” 

“And you, and you!” 

“Here—” Combeferre stood as well, and slipped Lémery’s list into Joly’s hand. “I’ll join you very soon.” 

Joly nodded. He folded the sheet of paper as small as he could make it, then tucked it into the pocket of his waistcoat. Even this hardly felt safe enough for his tastes, so he kept a hand pressed firmly over it as he walked. Such a gesture would be too suspicious by half if he had any great distance to travel, but it was only a matter of minutes before he was back at the inn. And true to his word, Joly had scarcely gotten his boots off and settled into the bed before Combeferre appeared. 

“Leméry had to return to the barracks,” he said as he shrugged off his coat. “How do you feel?”

“Just a bit—” He coughed. “—tired. But don’t think you have to linger here on my behalf.” 

“I spoke to the innkeeper on my way in,” Combeferre said. “I told him we thought we’d spend another night here. I didn’t think you seemed quite up to traveling.” 

“Oh, how kind!” Joly said. “I really wouldn’t have minded— I don’t want to keep you from Paris longer than you intended…”

“Not at all, not at all,” Combeferre said. “Everyone says it’s healthful to get away from Paris in the summertime. And there’s so much to see in Chartres, the more I considered it, the sillier it seemed to come all this way and make no use of it.” 

Joly declared this a very logical conclusion, one they should have considered in the first place. So Joly took a nap, and Combeferre took a stroll, and in the early evening they had dinner sent up and set to examining Lémery’s list. 

“Oh, there’s two pages,” Joly said as he drew the sheet out of his pocket and unfolded it. “I can’t read the cypher. One must be the names and the other the addresses.”

“So they can be kept separately, yes, that’s clever.” Combeferre glanced at them, then handed one back to Joly. “You keep one and I’ll keep the other.” 

“I still don’t like it,” Joly said. “Just carrying them about with us.”

“There’s nothing else we can do,” Combeferre said. “I can’t imagine who would take it besides a pickpocket, which would be inconvenient for us, but not dangerous: they would only throw it away, surely. And while it’s possible that someone had an eye on our conversation with Lémery, I saw nothing to suggest it at the time, or when I was out and about this afternoon.” 

Joly laughed. “I suppose I simply don’t trust myself with such delicate information.”

“You should,” Combeferre said. “I would trust you with anything.” 

Joly blushed and rubbed his nose with his handkerchief. “Well. You are very kind to say so. I can say the same of you. I think anyone would say the same of you! You are the kind of person who inspires trust. It is a very fine trait for a doctor!” 

“I hope it’s true,” Combeferre replied. “Shall I begin enumerating all the fine qualities you possess, that make you more than fit for the medical profession? In your delicate condition, I hate to risk causing a violent blush.” Joly was, indeed, already blushing a pretty shade of pink. “Then again, given your present excess of phlegm, perhaps redirecting blood to your face would have a salutary effect?” 

“You’re a terrible friend,” Joly said, putting on a sulk. “That is another trait that bears mentioning.” 

“It has often been said,” Combeferre agreed somberly. 

\--

It wasn’t until the next morning that Combeferre finally gave voice to what both were thinking. 

“You know,” he said. “Since we’re here, we might go see the giraffe.” 

“Why, I suppose we could!” Joly said, as if the idea had never occurred to him before that moment. “Is it still due to arrive today?” 

“You know as much of the matter as I do,” Combeferre said. “But we’ll investigate.” 

With the letters from Lémery tucked firmly into their waistcoats, their belongings collected to catch the evening diligence back to Paris, they set out for a street identified by the innkeeper as one he had heard the giraffe would traverse. The crowds gathering along the street seemed to confirm his view.

“Really, we shouldn’t have come at all,” Joly sniffed as a pair of children scampered by shouting _vive le roi!_ “It’s the king’s creature, after all. As a matter of principle, we should— should just ignore it.”

“A gift from one king to another,” Combeferre agreed. “In hopes of buying help with quashing Greek independence, no less. You’re right, it’s a disgrace to be seen here.”

“Good thing no one will see us.” 

They could hear the arrival of the giraffe long before they could see it, the shouts and gasps and cheers that rose up down the street far out of sight and rolled towards them like a ripple of sound. The giraffe’s head became visible long before her entourage of keepers, including Saint-Hilaire, and Combeferre gasped and seized hold of Joly’s hand. (Of all of Combeferre’s quirks, Joly found this the most endearing— his instinct, when moved, to grab onto his companion’s hand.) 

It moved unlike any animal either of them had ever seen; it seemed impossible that a creature so gawky could live and thrive in any wilderness in the world. Combeferre fumbled in his pocket for a bit of paper, and Joly provided a pencil. Looking at the sketch in the coupé later, Combeferre was not satisfied. 

“I am no artist,” Combeferre said. “I am not at all able to capture the sense of its movement.” 

“I think you did a very fine job,” Joly said. “I like the way you’ve done the markings.”

“What? No, I didn’t add them, that’s— oh…” It was where the ink from the writing on the other side of the paper had bled through to the back, where Combeferre had made his sketch. Combeferre turned it over, then showed it sheepishly to Joly: Lémery’s list. 

“Oh,” Joly said. “Well… well, it’s Enjolras. He probably won’t notice.” 

\--

They found Enjolras at the Musain the next morning, who looked up from his newspaper with a frown.

“Did you only just arrive?” He stood. “I was expecting you back yesterday. I was worried something had happened.”

“We ended up remaining another day,” Combeferre said. “Joly caught a cold--" A fact which Joly, caught in a sneezing fit, was conveniently demonstrating. "--and was not feeling up to travel. But all with Lémery went perfectly well, and he sends his regards. Here.” 

Combeferre offered up his list (carefully folded to conceal the giraffe, which they’d mostly managed to erase) and Joly held out his. Enjolras glanced quickly at both— it was plain from even so brief a view that the cypher was one he recognized, even if he could not decode it in that moment— and then slipped one into his pocket.

“Why don’t you keep that,” he said, offering it back to Combeferre. “And we’ll discuss them this evening. Until then, if you will excuse me taking the role that is properly due to the two of you— you do look as if you could use a rest.” 

“As the advice is so sound, we will not begrudge you,” Joly said cheerfully. “And we shall tell you the rest of our adventures this evening.” 

“How is it,” Combeferre asked as they stepped out into the street once more, “that after riding all night, the truly insurmountable distance always seems to be the one between the last carriage stop and one’s front door? My bed feels like a thousand miles away.”

“Then come rest at mine,” Joly said. “There is plenty of room, as the fair Lise and I have— alas!— parted ways.”

"And Lesgle is not staying with you?"

"Well," Joly said thoughtfully. "He wasn't. But then again, anything can happen in three days with him. He may be there. But he won't mind, either."

“I would be most grateful,” Combeferre said, and Joly answered with a smile, the moment only slightly spoiled when he turned away to blow his nose. "And I will endeavor not to fuss, as I know you're perfectly able to look after yourself-- but I will insist that you get some proper rest. And I am sorry. For being skeptical."

Joly laughed. "Well... I may deserve a touch of skepticism at times. Not as much as you all give me! But a touch. So I will not blame you. Besides, we retrieved an important message and saw the king's beautiful creature. If the price is a cold, well! That is well worth it, by my reckoning." 

They continued in silence for a minute or two, Joly distracted with trying to unearth a clean handkerchief from his valise, Combeferre by his own thoughts. 

"You said that I inspire trust, the other night," Combeferre said at last. "You do as well, you know. Your kindness, your good humor-- you see, you will blush and call them frivolous!" (Joly did seem poised to do just that.) "But they are the finest traits in the world. They inspire a different kind of trust, perhaps, but one no less important. A trust in your friendship, your goodness." 

"I see you've concluded that severe blushing will not prove detrimental to my health," Joly said, half hiding his face behind his handkerchief. "A mere offer of a bed for an afternoon hardly deserves such flattery!" 

"It is no flattery," Combeferre said. "I have simply had three days to be reminded of the pleasure of your company."

Joly beamed. "And I yours, my friend."

"But now," Combeferre said, for they were rounding the corner to Joly's street, "I think we would both find nothing more pleasurable than a proper bed." 

Joly nodded his fervent agreement.

“Oh, by the way,” he said a moment later, when they had nearly reached his number. “Which list did Enjolras keep?”

Combeferre grinned ruefully. “The one with the giraffe.”


End file.
